Miscellaneous grammar checks

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I'm making this thread for the one-off sentences that need grammar checks. This is open for anyone to use.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I have an opening that I need grammar checks. This is the first sentence of my story. Imo it's already fine as is but someone in the writing channel of a Discord server that I'm in says that it needs commas and didn't clarify where before jumping off the channel never to be seen again.

"Under the blindness of the night without a moon is a lone vehicle with armour as thick as heads protecting not against monsters but against the golden sand."

 

[justforthelulz]

I'm just confused by the second half.
"(...) as thick as heads protecting (...) against the golden sand."

What is this "golden sand"? A metaphor for time (an hourglass)?
Is this some roundabout way of calling someone literally thickheaded, rather than the usual figurative usage?
Or is it a description of a large army or force, as in lots of people ("heads")?

 

[Richman]

I would put a comma between heads and protecting. @DANDAN_THE_DANDAN

 

[Roseheart37819]

It sounds like this to me.
"Under the blindness of the night without a moon is a lone vehicle, with armour as thick as heads protecting not against monsters, but against the golden sand."

As a personal thing I'd ask to use "Under the blind, moonless night" rather than "under the blindness of the night without a moon", as it sounds more poetic, but that's up to you.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@justforthelulz Oh, that's a thing in my story. Sand turns solids into more sand. It's also carcinogenic when it reflects light. There are four condensation phases to sand: golden, dirty brown, silver, and uncondensed. The golden phase is the most potent at turning solids into sand, dirty brown is slightly worst at it, silver is where the sand doubles in volume and gets worst at turning sand into solid, uncondensed means the sand returns to being a normal solid.

This is why I said "Under the blindness of the night without a moon" since I was trying to say that the vehicle is traveling on the sand during the new moon so that as little light as possible reflects off of the sand so the drivers can stay safe.

This story is the second installment to my series so the readers should be familiar with the concept of sand from the first installment.

As for heads, I really have no idea. I just wanted to say that the vehicle has absurdly thick armour and the first thing that comes to mind is to compare it with heads.

@Roseheart37819 I really like that, do you mind if I steal it and slap it on my story?

 

[justforthelulz]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN
OK, I kinda get the sand part, but what about "as thick as heads"?
If your story isn't super ultra mega serious in tone, you could say "as thick as a romcom protagonist", though that might cause readers to mistake it for T H I C C.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@justforthelulz Lol sorry for the ninja edit but it's up there

 

[Roseheart37819]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN Yeah, that's fine!

If you want a better comparison for the armor, I might also be able to help with that, too. I just need a bit more background on what your story is.

e.g.
"Under the blind, moonless night was a lone vehicle, armor thick as the trunks of ancient trees that had seen summer after winter, rain after drought; that had seen their surroundings fall away century after century and now saw their own deaths approaching.

The wheels rolled quietly. The golden sand glittered beneath them."

- For all I know you have no trees. XD For starters, what exactly does the sand convert? Any solid? I assume not, since that car(?) is still going. (For some reason this vehicle is a BMW in my mind. XD)

Edit: Trunks, not rings.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@Roseheart37819 Thx for letting me use the commas! Also, there are no trees in my world lol.

Also, the sand converts all solids at a fast rate. There are ways to resist the conversion such as producing things from sand-resistant material or to keep it near a sentient being so the sand preferentially attacks the being's concioussness over the solid material (dw the mind fixes itself while sleeping).

The settings of the world is that after an anomalous meteor struck Earth which results in the sand, the world went to four different paths: underground, on the surface, on space satellites, or hibernate and go to space in hopes of finding a new planet. And I say the world here cause there are sentient robots as well and a history that stretches back for centuries. This is the surface-level information of it.

More info (and headache) in here.

 

[Roseheart37819]

I'm sorry it took some time to get back to you! To my understanding, you started out with a guy bringing venereal disease to an isekaied world and it torpedoed from there, right? To the effects of that new disease, and what exactly the pre-isekai world was like, and how those cultures developed with those effects. Languages, research, crystals, religion, money... It's so large-scale! Which is comforting. I have a similar story (also inspired by isekai tropes! In my case, the rarity of black hair), but it's somewhat smaller-scale, and here I've realized that someone else out there had a similar idea. Seeing everyone else's reaction to your ideas, it reassures me a bit that though I'm writing my story for myself, someone out there will read my rambles sometime and actually like them just as much as I do. X)

Anyway!

We were talking about you and your story!

I looked at everything (skims, mostly) and found the only "common" simile that your story would use is probably the crystals. They are like our crystals, right? As far as I know, you haven't elaborated on what they're actually like (appearance), just what they're used for.

If they aren't hard, then nothing much else is popping into my head. XD Ahhh. I'm sorry.

P.S. Your youtube account is the one that joined on January 2, 2015, right?